A condo of one’s own

>> Lesbian-friendly development designed to build a safe and supportive community

Whether it’s a lesbian utopia you seek or simply a safe space for women, Les Habitations Lavande might just have the right condo for you. The not-for-profit management company, affiliated with the Quebec Lesbian Network, is hoping to build two women-owned condo developments in the next year.

Women would band together to buy condos as part of a development that isn’t yet built, so that they, and the management company, can oversee construction and make specific requests. The benefits are great, according to Martine Lahaie, an accountant specializing in fiscal responsibility. She and real estate agent Marie-Josée Bisson are advisors on the project.

Not only will women have better bargaining power as a group, says Lahaie, but they will have a management company that will supervise the building process, hopefully preventing problems that can make condo construction a hellish experience for owners. Add to that the idea of living among women in a safe, friendly environment, and Lahaie says it’s a deal that can’t be beat.

Two projects were presented at a meeting last Sunday; an 11-unit project near Ontario and St-Nicolet in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, and an eight-unit project near St-Michel and Rosemont. The units range in size from 500 to 1,300 square feet and will cost about $150,000 to $250,000.

The projects are being billed as women’s condos, not lesbian condos per se, because there is concern about discrimination claims. Organizers point out that these projects are like any other condo development in the city, only the target market here is women.

The idea is simple, but by all accounts, not new. In the 1970s, Diane Heffernan, now coordinator of the Quebec Lesbian Network, was living a quiet life on a mountain-top outside a village in the Laurentians.

Many of her lesbian friends decided to leave the city behind and join her there. They bought plots of land and began building houses, creating what Heffernan has since referred to as a lesbian separatist community.

“We were separating from the feminist movement,” she says. “Socially, we were autonomous, but politically, we were fighting for issues that touched us as lesbians.”

And so began “l’Ile des femmes,” a place where lesbians were free to be themselves. “We saw ourselves as amazons,” she says. “We ate, drank and partied together. We only read lesbian books, listened to lesbian music.” Heffernan laughs when she remembers the group going to the village to buy beer and insisting that the store-owner ask his wife to serve them.

The lesbian utopia changed in the 1980s, as women began to move back to the city. “They needed more,” Heffernan says. “They wanted to work, to escape the poverty of the lifestyle.” Some of the women never left, but most of them eventually did.

Heffernan sees the women’s condo projects as an extension of what the women of “l’Ile des femmes” had in the 1970s. The concept is entirely different, she says, but the notion of a women’s community that creates a safe space where women know their neighbours, in an environment with less homophobia and isolation than women often face, is still desirable.

“It’s about being visible, being able to talk about your life openly if you want to and feel safe about it,” says Heffernan.